BEPOBT OK NEBRASKA INSECTS. 

 By Lawrence Brunei*, Special Agent. 



This has been an unusually favorable year in Nebraska and adjoining 

 States for the ravages of certain injurious insects. The spring was a 

 little backward, rather drier than usual, and warm, suitable for the 

 development of all kinds of our most destructive species. The summer 

 was a hot and uncommonly dry one, killing off the parasites, while con- 

 tinuing favorable to most of the species causing injury to crops. 



Among the species noticed to be injurious the following were chief: 

 The Bed-legged Locust (Melanoplus femur -rubrum), the Differential Lo- 

 cust (M. differential-is), Chinch. Bug (Micropus leucopterus), the Striped 

 Cottonwood Beetle (Plagiodera scripta), the Ash Saw-fly, the Colorado 

 Potato Beetle (Doryphora 10-lineata), the Gray Blister Beetle (Lytta 

 cinereus), the Corn Worm {Heliotliis armigcra), and the larvae of the Ash 

 Saw-fly, and early in the season the Box-elder Plant Louse. 



Notwithstanding the ravages of all these insects in connection with 

 a very dry summer, our crops have fallen but little below the average 

 year, and at the present time everything appears in first rate condi- 

 tion. 



As would naturally be supposed, from data received last year, locusts 

 are again on the increase at various points both southward and north- 

 ward. During the months of April and May I visited, under your in- 

 structions, central Texas, where several species of these insects had be- 

 come so numerous as to endanger the crops in that particular locality. 

 Upon these I reported at the time. We have since learned that crop 

 prospects in that portion of the State were good, and that the locusts 

 were diminishing in numbers. On the other hand, in Montana and 

 northwestern Dakota, advices stated that the Pocky Mountain Locust 

 {Melanoplus spretus) with several other species, were even more numer- 

 ous than they were in these places last year. This being a new and 

 sparsely settled country it has been very difficult to obtain reliable data 

 as to their numbers, movements, and injuries, if any. 



Judging from occasional newspaper reports during the season it is 

 quite evident to my mind that scattering swarms of locusts have reached 

 eastward at least as far as the James River, along the line of the North- 

 ern Pacific Railway, and southward of this point probably 75 or KM) 

 miles. These swarms have certainly left their eggs scattered over the, 

 country passed through while migrating, and will evidently be heard 

 17528— Xo. 13 3 :;:: 



